


Modest Miracles

by Arithanas



Category: 13th Century CE RPF
Genre: Cats shenanigans, Gen, lots of fluff, maybe a bit of crack, monastic life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8997754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: Maybe Omfin wasn't designed to lead a glorious life, but that didn't mean he had to have a bad one.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DigitalMeowMix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigitalMeowMix/gifts).



The scriptorium was cold. The horrible winter made work so very difficult, but brother Anthemius of Novgorod made the sign of the cross and prepared his spirit to offer the sacrifice of working in such harsh surroundings.

Brother Julius, the rubricator, coughed into his fist as he walked to his sloping desk, only to find his chair unavailable. One of the cats —a big grey tom with an ill temper and worse intentions― was curled in the seat and he was not amenable to moving. Brother Julius raised his hand in anger and the cat arched his back, hissing like a beast from the bowels of hell.

Half of the brothers stopped their work to watch the conflict, though none of them dared to step in. The congregation as whole respected the cats, largely due  to said cats and their natural habits, the brothers ate better throughout winter and their sleep was greatly improved in the summers.

Brother Julius took a step back; rage clear in his face. The tom stopped his noise and —out of what was clearly spite— he raised his tail. Brother Alexei barely had time to use an old palimpsest to screen brother Julius’s work from the spray of piss aimed the cat directed that way. The young brothers working the herse with the lunellum snickered and averted their eyes. They were lucky this was a holy day of obligation or else discipline swift and harsh.

The tom saw Brother Anthemius and skipped from his seat to greet his friend, rubbing against his robes until he unearthed a frail ankle.

“That furry beast tries my patience,” Brother Julius said, the cold having made his nose runny. “It should be thrown out to the snow.”

“It’s God’s creature,” Brother Anthemius replied with a small, conspiratorial smile, “and he’s in God’s house. I’m aching to know how you plan to keep him out, in the assumed event that you’re even able  to catch him.”

“Brother illustrator, I beg you to begin your work,” Brother Feofilakt, the prior, said as he passed by their side. “Brother Rubricator, people must get those edicts at your earliest convenience.”

Brother Anthemius nodded and moved to the right. His was the desk with the best light due to  his work being the kind that accrued the community with the most wealth. Noble people wanted desert scenes with fantastic animals in their volumes and naughty illustrations in their marginalia. Brother Anthemius could provide both.

With a sigh, he rested his weight on the chair. His left leg hurt, something should no longer cause him any distress, since it wasn’t attached to his thigh anymore. On cold days Anthemius felt it throb and ache. The substitute leg, made with cedar and carved with exquisite mastery, was a gift from one of the church's benefactors as a reward for a finely illuminated book of hours.

While Anthemius attended his leg, the tom jumped into his lap and looked at him with his round, gleaming eyes before he curled over Anthemius’s cassock.

“What an impish boy you were, Ohotnik,” Anthemius said and rubbed the cat’s chin, prompting a deep yawn. “Be a good kitten and warm my legs, now.”

Mumbling prayers, Anthemius open his desk and retrieved the horn rack and his quills. Uncountable hours of work sat in the device that brother Chedomir built for him. A silent prayer of gratitude for his brother’s ingenuity left Anthemius’s lips and with a happy sigh, he started his labors for the day.

Brother Feofilakt wanted him to illustrate a prymer for one of the ladies of the court; she wanted to give a great present to her nephew and hadn’t cared if it took years to see the work done. Last year, brother Milodrag, who was fat and cheerful, wrote the words, then it was old brother Velimir who corrected the text. Now it was his turn, and he was proud to be part of the communal effort; he wanted to see how brother Lyubomir would bind the book with sturdy covers when when Anthemius finished his portion of the work.

The prymer was the kind of project Anthemius loved to do: there would be long vines and comical miniatures on the margins. His brothers left enough space for him to illustrate big beasts because they knew how fond Anthemius to dragons.

“Hello, Volna,” Brother Anthemius greeted the white, old tabby that came and perch on his desk. “Thank you for keeping our parchment safe.”

With a joyous spirit, Anthemius touched Volna’s pink nose with the end of his favorite quill. Volna played with the end of the quill a bit apathetically. She was the best mouser and deserved all considerations. 

Ohotnik kneaded Anthemious’s cassock in his sleep. The tom was purring softly and the monk’s heart skipped a beat wondering if the other people knew that happiness was a slumbering cat on a cold day.

When Volna got tired of playing with the quill and jumped off the desk, Brother Anthemius bowed his head and started to sharpen the nib. The unexpected weight and the paw on the bald spot of his Great Schema interrupted his work.

“Ah, Pirs,” Brother Anthemius raised his hand and petted the head of the cream and brown kitten, born just this spring. Unlike Volna, Pirs liked to be touched and mewled happily, pushing his head against the friendly hand. “Be patient, young one, we can play later if you are good.”

Pirs let out a loud mew of protest, but soon it found a place on the monk’s shoulder. That was a privileged position, one that saw a fine position to witness work as it unraveled, and Pirs’s black eyes followed every detail. Brother Anthemius was grateful for the living scarf that shielded his neck from the bitter cold.

The nib was cut in a sharp angle in all his quills and Anthemius took the chance to scratch Pirs’s head before the kitten became too impatient. Pirs purred and pawed his hand for a bit before yawning and nuzzling his head under the monk’s beard. That meant it was time for him to return to his vellum and his quills.

An old, scratched vellum was placed on his desk for practice. With care, Anthemius lifted the lid from the black ink horn and dipped his oldest quill in the ink. He took the knife out of habit, since  he rarely needed to correct any mistakes while working anymore. The habit of twenty years now had become a second nature.

Anthemius traced his name as he had learned to do in his youth and observed the results. Anthemius noticed the nib was a bit frayed and reserved that old quill for effects. He turned to take another quill when he noticed the black tabby extending her paw towards the open horn.

“No, Glafira,” Brother Anthemius said and used his knife to drive her paw away from the ink horn. “Don’t touch.”

Glafira was a good cat, but God had not given her too much of a mind. The paw was lifted again and approached slowly, as if she wanted to ascertain if she really wasn’t meant to touch the ink. Anthemius smiled and used the knife again.

“Please, don’t.”

Glafira let out a pitiful meow and put the paw up again.

“No,” Brother Anthemius said with strong voice, his eyes kind but his voice was stern.

The cat got tired of the game and curled besides the horn rack, the only advantage to that agreement was no one will notice a spot of in in her coat. Anthemius returned to practice with his quills and all his furry friends behaved. Slowly, the letters of his name had begun to form a big figure as his hand relaxed. Years of depicting fantastic beasts lend his hand the skill to turn everything he did into a design.

After a while, his left leg started to feel warm, and that surprised him. Ghost limbs weren’t supposed to feel. Anthemius bowed his head and looked at Lyuba, the blind kitten, cuddling against his wooden leg. They said Lyuba would not live the night past her birth, but here he was, making Brother’s Anthemius life more cheerful.

With extreme care, Anthemius kissed his fingers and pressed them between those fluffy ears. Lyuba let out a faint meow that sounded to him like a blessing.

God works in strange ways, and Brother Anthemius was far too grateful for the modest miracles He provided in his infinite mercy to ever question for His reasons.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> I can't draw to save my life but I hope you like cats getting on the way of work.  
> I blame Wikipedia, Tumblr, beer, Umberto Eco, and a lifetime of monastic geekery, but all's worth if this make you smile.
> 
> My best wishes for the season and may 2017 be kind to you!


End file.
